What to expect from your school-based mentor

You’ll have a mentor in each of your placement schools. They should be an experienced teacher in your school.

You should have 1.5 hours a week of mentoring support. Where appropriate, providers can be flexible with this, as long as all trainees receive their full mentoring entitlement across a 2 week period.

They’ll be your first point of contact for anything you need during your time at the school.

Your mentor should:

• provide feedback to help you develop your teaching practice
• give you opportunities to observe them or other colleagues teaching
• support you with any issues or questions you have

Provide you with feedback

Your mentor is responsible for making sure your teaching is observed and you’re given feedback so you understand what you’re doing well along with things to work on.

They’ll help you set targets and understand how to improve, making sure you understand the curriculum and how to effectively put your teaching skills into practice.

Assess your progress

You’ll have informal and formal assessment points throughout your training.

Your mentor will work with your training provider to make sure you’re assessed throughout your training against your provider’s initial teacher training curriculum.

Informal assessments

Regular classroom observations will give you ongoing feedback so you can continue to develop your teaching skills.

You may also be required to share reflective journals where you self-assess your progress.

You’ll likely be asked to share lesson plans that your mentor can feed back on, too.

If your mentor is not linked with your subject or phase, you might be observed by another teacher in your subject area.

Formal assessments

Your formal assessments might be different depending on your training provider, but will include classroom observations.

You may also be asked to gather a portfolio of evidence. If you are, your training provider will let you know how to document this.

Talk to your provider at the start of your training so you know how you’ll be expected to gather evidence and you can do this as you go.

At the end of your training, you’ll then be assessed against the teachers’ standards.

Other support from your school

Subject mentors and leads

Your mentor may not always be linked with your specific subject or phase. In which case, you’ll usually have a subject mentor at your placement school who you’ll observe and work with to develop your teaching practice in your subject.

They’ll work closely with your mentor to provide feedback on your progress.

School staff

Many trainees experience support from the wider school team, not just their mentors.

You’ll likely observe a few different teachers throughout the school and may have a few of them observing you.

Support from your provider

As well as your school-based mentor, you’ll also have a mentor or tutor from your course provider who will not be specific to your placement schools.

They’ll explain how your provider requires you to gather evidence for qualified teacher status (QTS) and make sure you’re being supported on your placements.